Name the one thing that your company does. Think carefully before responding, because you’ll never be able to do anything else under the same brand name.

I think that’s a little extreme, but I was surprised to learn how passionately some people believe it to be true. About a week ago I wrote a short piece in response to Laura Ries’s post about UPS. In her post, Laura invokes a classic Ries line: “once your brand stands for something in the mind, it is impossible to change the brand’s position.” She goes on to use UPS (shipping), Kodak (film), and Blockbuster (video rental stores) as examples of brands that stand for just “one thing,” and therefore failed (or will fail, in the case of UPS) to be perceived as doing anything else well under that brand name. Follow her logic, and it’s why Kodak isn’t a leader in digital photography and Blockbuster’s Netflix-like service never took off.

I disagree. …Read More…

Just read this article by Laura Ries of Ries & Ries brand consulting. In it, she derides UPS for a recent ad campaign claiming that they do “more than shipping.”

Once your brand stands for something in the mind, it is almost impossible to change the brand’s position. UPS stands for shipping and the UPS Store stands for a place to ship. And that is not a bad thing, in fact it is an enormously profitable business.

Brands like UPS should reinforce their strengths in advertising and not try to expand into other companies’ categories.

I agree that brands need focus—that they should strive to stand for one thing in the minds of customers. But time and again Laura and her father/business partner, Al Ries, dole out advice without considering business realities. It’s unrealistic to assume that every business will do one thing only, forever. After all, one benefit of a strong brand is the “permission” it gives to extend into other relevant categories. …Read More…

[Originally published on B2B Brand Debate. If you'd like to leave a comment, please do so here.]

* While differences surely exist from agency to agency, “strategist” and “planner” will be used interchangeably throughout this post. The author’s opinion is that the responsibilities implied by these titles involve considerable overlap, but this too is open for debate.

Has anyone else noticed that strategists and account planners are getting a bad rap lately? To see what I mean, check out the show Trust Me, and you’ll see that planners are consistently portrayed as vacuous time-wasters who do little more than provide eye-roll-inducing creative briefs. For a little insight into the source of the show’s point of view, look no further than a recent blog post by Bob Hoffman, The Ad Contrarian, entitled “I’m Tired Of Strategists,” and a second by Simon Veksner, on his blog Scamp, about “Nightmare Propositions.” These two posts popped up almost simultaneously, and underscore doubts—at least among the industry’s “creatives”—as to the importance of strategists and planners. …Read More…